Judge Rejects Xbox 360 Ban in United States, Germany

U.S. Judge James Robart has ruled against Motorola regarding a proposed ban of Xbox 360 sales in the United States. The ruling comes as part of an ongoing patent dispute between Motorola and Microsoft in which Microsoft was found to have violated multiple Motorola patents involving H.264 video coding and access to the internet via Wi-Fi.

Judge Robart has now ruled that those patents are “critical to industry standards” and should be “licensed on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms,” according to the BBC. Motorola was asking for up to $4 billion a year from Microsoft for the right to use the technology, but a new fee will now need to be negotiated. Motorola was previously granted an injunction to ban Xbox 360 and Windows 7 sales in Germany, but that ban has now been overturned by Robart’s ruling.

A “fair license rate” will be negotiated as the case continues, potentially becoming a precedent for similar patent disputes in the future. A jury will also determine whether Motorola’s previous request for 2.25% of each Xbox 360 sold is unreasonably high.